Search Stars Summit @ SES San Francisco 2012

Google + Search Engine Land + Pubcon = Matt Cutts, Danny Sullivan and Brett Tabke in Surprise Panel Discussion at SES San Francisco 2012.

This was a don't miss event at SES San Francisco, and once again drives home the point that SESSF is a highly recommended conference to attend if you want the latest developments in Search Engine Marketing.

The big surprise on Tuesday afternoon was that Matt Cutts would participate the next morning. The surprises kept coming when Danny Sullivan joined him on stage, followed by Brett Tabke. You knew this was going to be an interesting session.

Mike Grehan, Matt Cutts, Danny Sullivan, Brett Tabke.

Matt Cutts is Google's chief manager guarding search results from spammers and spammy websites trying to 'game' the system. Essentially Mr. Cutts and his team protect and enhance Google SERP value and relevancy for the end-user. Matt is head of Google's "Spam Fighter Team", a team of employees located across the world. The team has been renamed, from "Search Quality" to "Search Knowledge", reflecting the expanding mission for more quality information, more relevancy, and less spam. Matt's team also manages releases of PANDA, PENGUIN, and other seemingly non-threatening search engine update animals which wreak deadly havoc on the website rankings of sites employing black-hat or spammy SEO techniques.

Matt Cutts' comments today revealed a bit more about thinking and intentions at Google for search.
I took furious notes, and hopefully captured some of these thoughts with some semblance of accuracy:

• Symantec Search is expanding.
• Knowledge Graph is being used more and more.
• Beta: Individual Gmail accounts can be included in personal search results, and are being displayed in an experimental phase with limited users. 
• Social Media will be used "a lot more" in the "long term" for organic search rankings.
• Links ranking will still be a factor of measuring site popularity.
• Panda: Monthly updates continuing. The updates are now routine and incremental changes.
• Penguin: More "jolting" updates are coming for spammy websites.
• "If you build a quality website, you will have nothing to worry about."
• "Original Content is Best."
• Duplicate content within a website with original content is not penalized so much, if needed. But avoid too much boilerplate repetition. 
• However, duplicate content associated with affiliate websites is of a lower quality and is subject to penalty.
• Social Signals: Facebook is only partially open to search-bots and crawling. Twitter has blocked Google from crawling. Social is a fluid space which is evolving quickly.
• Expect more transparency from Google over time regarding communication, warnings, and alerts to webmasters.
• "Do SEO." "But do SEO well." Avoid Spam Tactics. "Google doesn't hate SEO!"
• To rank well in organic search, look at the value you are adding. Simple copy and paste link affiliates add no value.
• Google users expectations rise each year. They expect more and more. We need to give them that quality experience or we'll be surpassed. 
• Matt make a good joke about the danger of a potential voice enabled search tool being created by another firm, a firm which names that search tool "SIRI". This brought a good laugh from the large audience. SIRI shows that Google cannot stand still.
• Q&A: "Is Google transitioning from Search to Content?"  Cutts: "We're trying to get the knowledge out there." The Knowledge Graph was cited as an example of enhancing results for users.
• Matt indicated that Google has indexed over 30 Trillion URLs.
• Google now handles over 100 Billion searches a month.
• Even with these astounding numbers, Google has only indexed or can access only a portion of the world's internet space.
• Google+ was discussed. Cutts said "Don't jump to conclusions about Google+" and search engine rankings. "We don't put a lot of weight on this quite yet."
• Cutts emphasized that Google must stay unbiased on search results. Google does not favor its own products or services in organic search, such as phones and travel. "Google has a strong commitment to search neutrality. Like Switzerland. There is no boost for Google properties."

There was a huge amount of web activity today from this historic summit on blogs, twitter, websites, etc. To learn more detail, and get some different opinions or perceptions on this panel discussion, please visit these postings:

See videos of this historic SES meeting:

• Matt Cutts on Google Entering New Spaces On The Internet
• Matt Cutts Q&A: What is the Impact of Google+ on Search Rankings?
• Matt Cutts Q&A: What is Google's Commitment to Webmasters?

Related news articles on this historic panel:

• Search Convergence In SF: Matt Cutts, Danny Sullivan, Mike Grehan & Brett Tabke
• Spotlight Keynote With Matt Cutts #SESSF
• Q&A with Matt Cutts at SES San Francisco: Social reputability for SEO, traffic cannibalization and the promise of transparency from Google

Regarding PANDA, PENGUIN, FARMER, and other Google updates:

• Thoughts on PANDA, FARMER and other Search Engine Creatures.

Fun With Big Data @ SES San Francisco 2012

Big Data and Analytics

Search Engine Strategies covers a wide range of important topics to web marketers, which is why I find great value in attending this conference. Today, the first day of the official three day conference was especially valuable for me by focusing on one big topic: Big Data.

Opening Keynote address by Google's Avinash Kanshik. 

It was hard to avoid Big Data and its related sibling, Web Analytics today at SES.
Big Data is everywhere.

Avinash Kaushik Keynote Speech:
The opening keynote address at SES San Francisco was by Avinash Kaushik, Digital Marketing Evangelist at Google. In Avinash's enthusiastic, entertaining and informative speech he revealed hard facts, trends and tools regarding social media strategies, data, data visualization, and more. He stressed analytics as a powerful tool to understand what is going on in your website, and shared some excellent data driven visualization sources, including http://d3js.org/. Avinash stressed that one should understand ultimate behavior before taking action, citing a common mistake of 'killing off' many generic search terms because they do not convert on the first visit.... when in fact they are often a crucial first step in the sales cycle. Understand the data behind the activity before doing something you'll regret later!

Mr. Kaushik addressed Social Media measurement. Social Media, he said, is permanently changing Marketing, but slowly. Successful social media should add value to the lives of the audience. Post and tweet outward, link to outside sources. "Interrupt the audience at the point of need. Then fulfill that need!". Tell your audience something new and useful. Tweeting about recent promotion of a VP in your company does not pass this test. Avinash's ideas on how to measure social media data can be found at Best Social Media Metrics: Conversation, Amplification, Applause, Economic Value. He also shared an interesting social measurement tool at: http://www.truesocialmetrics.com/.

Big Data: What Marketers Need to Know:

Speaker: Bryan Eisenberg, SES Advisory Board, www.bryaneisenberg.com
"The Money is in the Data". Brian drives this point home over and over again with real world examples of how companies are generating more success, revenue and profits by seeking to understand the huge mountains of data they own, and then exploiting that data. Amazon is a key example of how a company exploits the data it owns for success. Some key points from Mr. Eisenberg:

• We are surrounded by data. Today the world produces more data in 2 days than was previously produced from 2003 going back all the way into ancient history. 190,000 additional data scientists will be needed in the next 3 years.
• Big Data = Complex Data. 
• Understanding Big Data takes People, Processes, and Tools.
• The process for understanding Big Data requires planning, improving, measuring, then repeating.
• Important Big Data Tools come in several flavors: Analytical Tools, Predictive Analytics Tools, Data Driven Tools, and Adaptive Learning and Optimization Tools.
• There is significant latent value in the piles of web visitor data your analytics tool is sitting on. There are new tools and companies out there which can help you understand and then leverage this data.
• Bryan is a member of the Digital Analytics Association. 
• The blog to the DAA organization is at: http://waablog.webanalyticsassociation.org/

Introduction to Analytics:

Speaker: Matthew Bailey, SES Advisory Board; President of Site Logic Marketing
Matt Bailey is an expert on Google Analytics, and just as importantly an expert on how to apply the vast amount of big data produced to practical and effective use for superior website performance and financial results.

Some of the many key points made by Matt:

• Customize analytics to work for You.
• STOP pushing out meaningless data every month in your reports. Break the habit.
• Avoid repetitive 'copy and paste' analytics reporting.
• Go beyond- - into real data which can be actionable. Build content and measure intent.
• Ask questions: Where did the visitor come from? What did they see? How did they react?
• Set Goals, Segment, Define Conversions. Then Measure! Ask "Are we meeting business goals?"
• Goals can be simply stated: What makes me $, What will make me $, What could make me $.
• You define what is a conversion. 
• Dig deeper to get beyond superficial measurements, such as bounce rate. A high bounce rate may in fact be a good thing and suggests an opportunity to exploit. Understand the data.
• Unique visitors are actually unique devices such as computers, phones, tablets... not 100% people. Therefore this metric is not dependable.
• Build Context with Keywords. Put the Keywords into Buckets and sub-Buckets to Segment and analyze.
• Value: What is the value of a lead? Value by Keyword? Value by Landing Page?
• Value is the missing metric you must supply. "Visitors who searched for ____ are worth ____ $$$".
• Don't forget to data-mine  your internal search engine's data.
• Keyword ranking reports are good if Context is understood.
• Keyword analysis - look at value, not rank alone.
• There was a lot more big data and analytics wisdom given, I just couldn't write it all down!

Matt Bailey has a stellar business-centric focus on data and analytics, along with his skills in web design, SEO, and usability. I hired him as a consultant during a key exploratory phase of our next generation website project. Mr. Bailey has an excellent book I strongly suggest to anyone conducting web marketing of any kind: "Internet Marketing: An Hour a Day".

Fun With Adwords @ SES San Francisco 2012

Adwords Deep Dive.

I've just finished an intense full day of Adwords training: "Advanced Keyword Research & Management" and "Mastering the Google Display Network" at Search Engine Strategies in San Francisco, courtesy of ClickZ.

Search Engine Strategies 2012

Adwords is a complex system that is stuffed with a complex, diverse range of tools, data, and options which can be overlooked and under-utilized due to time restraints and/or a simple lack of awareness. These classes shed light on the array of options available in Adwords.
The ClickZ Adword classes today were focused, in-depth and extremely useful. Applying the techniques, tactics, strategies, technologies, analytics, lessons and options learned today can transform paid search campaigns.
Paid Search is a vital tool to help drive in business, quality leads, and market awareness. It should never replace organic search success, but PPC does a great job in  complementing it. Direct Search ads and Display Network ads are important tools in a proper search engine marketing kit. I've been using Adwords since 2003, but I'm not ashamed to say I learned quite a bit of useful information today!

Adword experts Bill Hunt and Joseph Kerschbaum put on the classes today:

Advanced Keyword Research & Management

Bill Hunt
SES Advisory Board; President, Back Azimuth Consulting @billhunt
Summary: 
Don't assume your search campaigns are 'optimized'. Most likely, they aren't. There is always room for improvement. Bill Hunt spent 4 hours showing how adword campaigns can be improved, even transformed.... and how lucrative new business opportunities can be discovered. Bill shows there is huge potential for improving your current campaigns.... generating more leads, more intelligently, and quite possibly at lower cost. It didn't matter if attendees were rookies or grizzled Adwords veterans, this was an extremely useful class. I recommend Bill's class to anyone touching an Adwords account.

Mastering the Google Display Network

Joseph Kerschbaum
Vice President, Clix Marketing @joekerschbaum
Summary:
Display Ads with Google have been evolving. Joseph shows that the lower expectations and poor perceptions of Display Ads from a few years ago is now unjustified. Joseph guided the class through the improvements and innovations in display options, tracking, exclusions, remarketing, etc. He also dived into tactics and strategies with Display Ads. Joseph makes it easy to understand that the 2012 Google Adwords Display Network is not your Father's old clunky Google Content Network. Thank God. Thanks to Joseph, a new appreciation for Google Display Ads is possible. Display Ads is a resource which should not be overlooked, nor under-managed. For anyone ready to take a serious look at Google Display Ads, Joseph provided an exceptionally informative and eye-opening class today.

My impression of today's events at SES:
There was so much valuable, useful information presented today by both gentlemen that it is impossible to provide an outline here without writing a small book - - in outline form. Based on the wealth of Adwords and Paid Search marketing information received today, I'm confident a rapid payback and positive ROI will quickly result from today's classes  - - even if only a few of the many ideas, tactics, and suggestions they presented are used.

Internet Marketing: An Hour a Day by Matt Bailey

I'm endorsing an excellent internet marketing book. 
There is a vast ocean of web marketing publications out there promising wisdom and success, but only a precious few provide real tangible guidance and practical how-to details. As busy marketeers, our time is very limited. Time, in fact, is money. The challenge is to find and read only those web marketing books worthy of our time.

I've found an excellent web marketing guide which will help you, no matter your experience and knowledge base.
Matt Bailey is a recognized authority on web marketing. His expertise helped guide my company to make some very wise decisions a few years ago, decisions which have propelled us to unprecedented success in web marketing and lead generation.

Your Guide to Web Marketing Success.

Matt's approach takes his years of proven experience and expertise and applys it for practical, tangible, results.Matt's book "Internet Marketing: An Hour a Day" fits this useful philosophy precisely.

Matt provides an overview on the key factors involved in successful internet marketing... and then shows you how to get things done. He dives in to teach the crucial details and the practical and effective steps and actions.

Matt provides the vital "how to" needed in order to make things happen and help us WIN at internet marketing.

This is a book you should read if you are involved with Internet Marketing, at any level of experience.

I hope my competitors never read this book. That is probably the best compliment I can give to Matt Bailey and his book "Internet Marketing: An Hour a Day".

How does Google search work?

Matt Cutts describes the Google Search process in under eight minutes in this very educational video. Matt also provides some some interesting Google history.

How Search Works - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNHR6IQJGZs



Connect with Erik Holladay on Linkedin.

Search Engine Marketing is Industrial Strength Lead Generation (Or Should Be).

The Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide

In the wild west of Search Engine Optimization, the range of SEO expertise, experience, competency, ability, productivity, and (yes) humility is wide and remarkable. As the number of websites worldwide continues to soar, and Google punishes spammers and poor content sites with Panda, Penguin and other dangerous virtual beast attacks, the need for good SEO knowledge, capability and practice becomes more and more important.

The Google SEO Guide: Helping with SERP

Google has a great tool to help us achieve SEO success, and possibly reach SERP "Search Engine Nirvana" where our webpages dominate our competitors. I am happy to say that many, many of the webpages I am responsible for are thriving and in a state of "SEO bliss", happily and brutally crushing most competitor webpages for key search term rankings in organic search. But this is where objective humility becomes so important. I take nothing for granted, absolutely nothing! Today's success in SEO can be tomorrow's defeat if the steps in the Google SEO guide are not followed diligently.

The Google SEO guide won't give away top secrets which automatically rank your site first for queries in Google. This is no surprise. However, following the best practices in the guide make it easier for search engines to crawl, index and understand your website and its content.

This statement from Google SEO Guide really sums up the formula for success with SEO:

"Search engine optimization is often about making small modifications to parts of your website. When viewed individually, these changes might seem like incremental improvements, but when combined with other optimizations, they could have a noticeable impact on your site's user experience and performance in organic search results." 

In other words, successful SEO takes dedication, knowledge, skill, education, work ethic, talent, desire, patience, perseverance, objective humility and more. Make sure you and your SEO team have these key attributes in abundance. Then get going!

Download the Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide.

Connect with Erik Holladay on Linkedin.

Young Scientist Builds a Better Search Engine

Seventeen-year-old Nicholas Schiefer is on his way to developing the next Google search engine for the social-media world. The Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award winner sits down with the WSJ to explain. This kid is obviously very intelligent, and listening to him talk about his idea reminds one of Jobs, Gates, Brin, Zuckerberg, and so many others who helped drive the highly creative and disruptive tech and internet revolution and change the world.
Be prepared for a short discussion on the Markov Chain, a mathematical system that undergoes transitions from one state to another, between a finite or countable number of possible states. Watch this space, and watch the young Mr. Nicholas Schiefer in the coming years!
Connect with Erik Holladay on Linkedin.

Inside a Google Search Engine Meeting - Video

Google offers a real-life glimpse into a Search Engine Meeting inside the Mountain View HQ. You might recognize some of the attendees... Matt Cutts, for example. 

Lights, Camera, SERP: Google Quality Launch Review Meeting

The meeting occurred on December 1, 2011 at a weekly Google “Quality Launch Review” meeting.
Meeting participants gathered in Mountain View and joined on videoconference from Moscow, New York, Zurich, Seoul, Haifa, Tokyo, and other locations.

Obviously, Google released this video because there are no hidden, amazing, newly revealed algorithm secrets to encourage black-hat spammers and all SEO practitioners to 'game' the system. But this is still a remarkable, if transitory, lifting of the Google curtain of secrecy. I very much enjoyed watching this..... talented Google denizens coming to life.

Why do I feel like I'm a fly on the wall of a secretive Federal Reserve Open Market Committee meeting? LOL.

A very special thanks to Brandignity for bringing this to my attention!

You can watch this Google Video at:
http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2012/03/video-search-quality-meeting-uncut.html

Connect with Erik Holladay on Linkedin.

Monitoring Kids' Usage of Social Media

Alternative Social Media Sites enjoy growth as kids try to avoid Mom on Facebook. 

Facebook has become mainstream, going way beyond its initial avant-garde college student origins. Early adoption by other young adults was then followed by teenagers and tweeners. But now with Mom and Grandma busy posting updates, photos and playing Farmville on Facebook, the 'cool' appeal has worn off for these younger demographics... Facebook has become way too inclusive for their tastes... they don't want parents and other relatives or older adults see them doing or posting things which can get them into trouble. This short video from WSJ helps explain the current trends in tweener and teenager social media usage. Learn more at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303916904577377813269480788.html

Connect with Erik Holladay on Linkedin.

Negative SEO: Search Engine War By Other Means

Here is a great video to watch for any serious SEO web-marketing manager: "Negative SEO: Myths, Realities, and Precautions - Whiteboard Friday", by Rand Fishkin, CEO & co-founder of SEOmoz. A great review of some of the darker arts of black-hat SEO, and how to protect your websites from negative SEO attack.

Connect with Erik Holladay at Linkedin.